


All Along the Watchtower

by saberteeth



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, M/M, background anidala, background obikin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:35:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29853351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saberteeth/pseuds/saberteeth
Summary: Five times Fives falls in love, and falls apart.
Relationships: CT-21-0408 | CT-1409 | Echo/CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives, CT-21-0408 | CT-1409 | Echo/CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives/CT-7567 | Rex, CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives/Anakin Skywalker, CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives/CT-5597 | Jesse, CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Kudos: 10





	All Along the Watchtower

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in 2018 and just found it in my google docs. i have not read it since then but figured i'd throw it up for any one interested

**I. Echo**

Fives didn’t have many memories of his early life; an embryo one moment and a soldier the next, but he always remembered Echo. They were all Brothers, Clones were Brothers, but Echo was something more.

Domino Squad couldn’t be the cohesive unit that General Ti wanted them to be. He had seen the way other units worked, the way they functioned as multiple parts of a single warrior; where one ended, the other began.

They could not be like that. They recalibrated over and over again and could not find the same wavelength.

Echo and Fives asked for a transfer to a new unit. It was not granted. It was the first time Fives doubted the Jedi.

After the attack on Rishi, Fives curls his hand around Echo’s wrist, and feels safe, despite the chaos and dead brothers surrounding him.

Fives knows that Clones are not meant to love. Good soldiers do not let love get in the way. But as he takes the shuttle away from the Citadel, an empty space next to him where Echo should be, Fives thinks his heart is breaking.

**II. Rex**

Rex is everything that a good soldier should be. Fives is loyal but he is brash and bold and he will sometimes focus on a narrow train of thought and follow it down a dangerous path and he cannot let that go.

Rex thinks like a leader. Rex does not need to be the hero, Rex needs to win battles.

When Fives is promoted to ARC-trooper, he begins using twin DC-17 blasters just like his Captain does, and he pretends that it’s nothing more than admiration for an incredible soldier.

**III. Jesse**

Fives’ knees are in the dirt as he kneels next to Jesse and pleads with his Brothers. He pleads with them and begs them to realize that they are people. He curses Pong Krell, curses the Jedi, curses the godsforsaken war.

It is the first time he doubts the Republic, as a whole. It is the second time he realizes that he is in love.

Jesse, as he stares desperately into the eyes of the Clones before them, does so silently as Fives begs Dogma, stares only into the eyes of Kix. He doesn’t look at Fives once.

The Clones miss the shot.

**IV. Obi-Wan**

Fives has long since stopped wondering why the 501st and the 212th so often work together. He knows that other former Master-Padawan pairs are not like this. But he has also seen Anakin angry, and he knows that Obi-Wan would not deny him anything.

He has seen the way that Obi-Wan and Anakin fight together. He has heard the way that Obi-Wan’s voice curls around the syllables in Anakin’s name.

He wants it for himself.

He wants wartime comfort. He wants anything. He does not want this lifestyle anymore.

**V. Anakin**

Fives realizes that he loves his General before he can even dwell on the thought. He is skilled, and loud, and _stupid,_ and Fives loves him.

Anakin loves his wife. Fives is not stupid. Anakin loves Obi-Wan. Anakin loves Rex. Anakin loves the 501st.

But he does not love Fives. Not like that.

Much later, when the Chancellor is not who Fives has always thought he was and there is a microchip in his head, his only want is to warn his General. He is too late, and then he is in Rex’s arms, and then he is dead.

* * *

**VI.**

“Droids do not love,” Fives says, touching his head where the bandage is, fingertips ghosting over the scar tissue that never quite healed when the ink from his tattoo was supposed to settle into his skin.

“And Clones are just numbers,” says AZ-3. “I will create the diversion now.”


End file.
